Association of statin use and the risk of recurrent pulmonary embolism in real-world Chinese population

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have suggested that statins exert protective effects against venous thromboembolism. However, few randomized studies have explicitly concentrated on patients with pulmonary embolism. Thus far, evidence of the effect of statins on the pulmonary embolism recurrence in China remains lacking. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was conducted utilizing our University database. Patients with an International Coding of Diseases-defined diagnosis of pulmonary embolism from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2019 were included. The patients were divided into two groups, namely, with statin or without statin treatment. Propensity score matching was applied to balance the covariates between the comparison groups. Univariate analysis and multivariable logistic regression were performed to analyze the association between statin use and pulmonary embolism recurrence. RESULTS: A total of 365 patients diagnosed with pulmonary embolism were included in the research. Pulmonary embolism recurrence accounted for 15.1% of the patients and was observed during the entire study period. In the initial population, no significant difference in recurrence was observed between the groups with and without statins treatment (statin 15.6% vs. non-statin 14.9%, p = 0.860). After propensity score matching, multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that the odds ratio of pulmonary embolism recurrence in the statin users was 0.489 (95% confidence interval 0.190–1.258, p = 0.138). CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides no support for the use of statins as an adjunctive therapy in patients with pulmonary embolism at the initiated time of diagnosis or as a prophylactical plan when anticoagulation is discontinued attempting to reduce the risk of recurrence.